| Albania has been inhabited since the ancient times. (100 thousand years ago). With the passage to the third millennium B.C., due to Indo-European invasions and assimilation with the local population, it was created a population with general cultural and linguistic features for the whole of the Balkan Peninsula (Pellazgs). It is claimed that their descendants are the Illyrians, Greeks, Thracians, even the Turkish.
The Illyrians spread over the Western part of the Balkan Peninsula, from Sava and Danub Rivers in the North and Sava and Vardar River in the East. The most outstanding Illyrian tribes have been : Mollose, Dardans, Desares, Ardians, Taulants, Liburnes, Enkeleas. The socio-economic development found its reflection in the emergence of the Illyrian cities such as Scutari (Shkodra), Lissus (Lezha), Amantia, Antipatria (Berat), Albanopoli (Zgerdhesh), Antigonea, Tronioni, Belsh, etc (IV-II centuries BC).
The Illyrians, ancestors of today’s Albanians, occupied the western Balkans in the 2nd millennium BC, and a convoy of interested warring states followed. The Greeks arrived in the 7th century BC, set up self governing colonies and in the main traded peacefully with the Illyrians, who set up their own tribal states by the 4th century BC. The Greeks took over the south, and still have a claim on it today. The expanding Roman Empire came to blows with an expanding Illyrian Empire based around Shkodra in present day northern Albania, and the Illyrians came off the worse after the Romans sent 200 warships there in 228 BC. The Romans spread their rule to the whole of the Balkans by 167 BC, and in the main Illyria enjoyed peace and prosperity - as long as you weren’t one of the slaves working on the agricultural estates.
When the Romans couldn’t hold on any longer, the Visigoths, Huns, Ostrogoths and Slavs salivating outside city limits struck poses and compared armies during the 5th and 6th centuries AD. In the 11th century, the Byzantines, Bulgarians and Normans squabbled over the northern region of Illyria, which, before Roman times, had stretched north to the Danube.
The country’s name “Arberi” is testified as early back as the second century by Greek geographer Ptolemeu. The later for Albania has served as a basis for the different names applied to the country at present. Arbers had their common language, culture and territory. Arberi was transformed into an arena of wars between the armies of southern Italy and Byzantium. The coast of Arberia became the first settlements of the crusaders of the first crusade.
The first mediaeval Albanian state, having Kruja as its Capital failed to resist the foreign Byzantine and Serbian occupations. After the collapse of the Serbian Empire (1355), a number of Albanian feudal principalities were set up.
The ottoman feudal regime was established in the greater part of the country in the years 1419-1421. The Albanian resistance reached its climax with the 25 year long war (1443-1468), led by Gjergj-Kastrioti-Scanderbeg.
The Ottomans invaded and ruled until 1912, letting the region languish as the most backward part of Europe. In 1878, the Albanian League at Prizen (in present day Kosovo, Yugoslavia) began a struggle for autonomy that continues today. The Turkish army squashed the first glimmers of independence in 1881, but further uprisings followed.
Uprisings between 1910 and 1912 culminated in the declaration of independence and the formation of a provincial government led by Ismail Qemali. The London Ambassadors’ Conference of 1913, however, put paid to aspirations of independence by handing Kosova, (you’re less likely to cause offence if you call it Kosova) - nearly half of Albania - over to the Serbs.
WWI temporarily wiped away further moves for independence as Albania was occupied by Greece, Serbia, France, Italy and Austria-Hungary in succession. From 1920 to 1939 the country governed itself, but Ahmet Zogu, representing the landed aristocracy, went to bed with Mussolini’s Italy. That move sprang back to hit him in the face when the Italians invaded at the outbreak of WWII. The communists, under Enver Hoxha, led the resistance against Italy and, after 1943, Germany. By October 1944 they’d thrown the Germans out, the only East European nation to do so without the assistance of Soviet troops. The communists consolidated power after the war, and proclaimed the People’s Republic of Albania in 1946.
Two years later the country broke off relations with Yugoslavia and allied itself with Stalin’s USSR. Britain and the USA backed a few Balkan-style Bay of Pigs operations - landings by right-wing Albanian émigrés - that nevertheless failed to topple the communists. When Khruschchev demanded submarine bases in 1960, Albania broke off diplomatic relations. After the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, Albania left the Warsaw Pact altogether. It embarked on a self-reliant defence policy that has left the country littered with around 750,000 igloo-shaped concrete bunkers and pillboxes, some of which have since been painted in bright colours. After the break with the USSR in 1960, Albania turned toward China for its inspiration, even embarking on its own cultural revolution in 1966-67. Albania’s special relationship with China ended in 1978.
Hoxha died in 1985, and the new leader, Ramiz Alia, embarked on a liberalisation program and strengthened Albania’s ties abroad. By early 1990 the collapse of communism in most of eastern Europe had created a sense of expectation in Albania, and after student demonstrations in December the government agreed to allow opposition parties to exist. The communists won the 1991 elections, but by mid-May a general strike forced the ruling Socialist Party into a coalition with the opposition Democrats. Central economic planning was now on the skids, factories ceased production and the food distribution network broke down. By late 1991 the country faced chaos, and food riots broke out in December. The EU, fearful of a refugee crisis, stepped up economic aid, and the Italian army set up a large military base south of Durrës to supervise food shipments.
The 1992 elections ended 47 years of communist rule, and the Democratic Party wasted no time in launching a witch hunt against former communists and party officials. By 1993, Amnesty International was prompted to condemn increasing human-rights violations in the country. Albania signed a military agreement with Turkey in 1992 and joined the Islamic Conference Association in a move to counter Greek territorial claims to southern Albania (which the Greeks call Northern Epiros). The mid- to late 90s saw quick changes in prime ministers and presidents as the new democracy stumbled and nearly collapsed, and many Albanians left the country in search of work. As much as 20% of the labour force currently works abroad, mainly in Greece and Italy. When NATO bombed Yugoslavia in spring 1999, nearly half a million ethnic Albanian refugees from Kosovo spilled over the border into neighbouring Albania.
In 2001, the first national census in 12 years found that the population had decreased by 3%, largely because of emigration. Refugee smugglers are thriving, and the bulk of refugees end up in Italy. The tragic underside of this human traffic became clear in January 2004, when a 20 refugees drowned in the Adriatic when their boat capsized. With the two-steps-forward, one-step-back that marks Albania’s national life, recent years have been distinguished by attempts to integrate the country with its European neighbours. Albania was a participant in the US-led occupation of Iraq, and in January 2003 began Stabilisation and Association Agreement talks with the EU, seen as the first step to eventual membership.
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